He fed the hungry in the desert; but the bodily appetite, and its supply, he meant to use as an avenue of access for divine mercy into human spirits. He healed the ten lepers, but he complained of the ungrateful nine, that the act had not opened a way for himself into their hearts. When the paralytic lay before him, a compassion that was at once divine and human wrought in his bosom and flowed from his lips. Thy sins be forgiven thee, and, Take up thy bed and walk, clung together like the deity and manhood in Christ.

When we put him far from us, we then and thereby keep ourselves far from him. You may have observed that when you come near the mirror on the one side, the image within it approaches nearer on the other; but that as far as you retire on this side, so far the image | retires on that. A similar process goes on, according to a similar law, in the intercourse between Christians and Christ. When you count him distant, you feel yourself distant; when he is near to you, you are near to him. In particular, when you feel that your Redeemer has come down through all spiritual and eternal things, in order that he may lay his human heart along yours, and share its smallest, secretest sorrows, you get very near him, not only with these sorrows which come first in contact, but also near him-into his heart, and up to his heaven, for all the treasures of his grace, and all the hopes of his glory.

To a mind outwardly instructed, but not inwardly taught of the Spirit, God, our just judge, seems to stand at an inaccessible distance in the highest heaven. From that height Christ the mediator seems to descend on our behalf, and take up his position on an intermediate stage, half way between heaven and earth. Thence he beckons us to come, and promises to save. But though he seems nearer to us than heaven, and willing to receive us when we reach his standing-place, there is still between him and us a great gulf which we cannot pass. We have not the wings of a dove, whereon we might fly to him and be at rest. Although he engages to carry us all the way to heaven after we have climbed up to him, we cannot climb up to him, and so lie down despairing. Clogged by the body, and sticking fast in the thick clay of earthly cares, we never once get up into that region where Jesus seems to stand,-where we keep him standing.

What then? The dupes of the Romish priesthood call upon Mary and Peter, and other more doubtful saints, to come and help them over and up to Christ. As the poor shivering child stands on the gulf's brim, and sees Jesus at a hopeless distance on the other side, saints of various name and character approach, and undertake to bear the trembler over. Those who throw themselves into these outstretched arms sink through into the pit. The saint was nothing but a shadow,the shadow of a name. But what of us who know full well that these manifold mediators are unsubstantial phantoms? What of us who intelligently demand credentials, and refuse to leap for life into the embrace of

deceivers? We detect and distrust the false offer of help; but without help we cannot lift ourselves up to a lofty, distant Saviour. What then? Then, stand still, and see the salvation of God. Lo! he comes,-he comes over and down to us. He stands where we stand; he looks into our faces; he stretches out his arms; he clasps us to his breast. He does not remain distant, ready to receive us after we have by our own energy raised ourselves to yonder height of spiritual attainment. He comes near to bear us first from our low estate up to that height, and afterwards beyond it, all the way to heaven. He will work the first part of our redemption, and the last. He will do all. He does not wait for those who can escape from the trammels of earth, and arise into the region of the spiritual; he descends to the level of mere humanity, and folds in his everlasting love those who lie groaning there. "Jesus wept!" I could not spare that word from my Bible any more than I could spare the incarnation or the intercession. What although he had done divinely all the work, except a little portion at the lower end; unable to do that little for myself, the greater, higher part accomplished would have been of no avail to me. What although he had come, and come to save, all the way from the Godhead down to the spiritual regions in the higher strata of humanity; sunk and loaded as I was, I could not have soared thither to meet him there. He has come the whole way down to us. Lo, I am with you always!" Look unto Jesus. Behold, he weeps, and weeps with a sister at a brother's grave. He does not reserve all his concern for our sin; he lavishes his sympathy also upon our sorrows. No chasm remains which we must pass alone on our way to Christ. He is God with us.

In the life of Jesus as recorded for us by the Spirit, there are two weepings. Twice in the body, and on the earth the man Christ Jesus shed tears; but in neither case were they shed for himself. Not in Gethsemane, not on the cross, did Jesus weep. Both the sorrows were for our sakes; but they differed widely from each other. When he drew near Jerusalem, and beheld the city, he wept over it; when he saw a bereaved sister mourning for a dead brother, he wept with her. The one weeping was for human guilt; the other was for human sorrow. The one marks his divine compassion for the sinful; the other his human sympathy with the sufferer. Each is precious in its own place, but the places are widely diverse. The two examples exhibit different qualities of the Saviour, and meet different necessities of

men.

down to meet me in my natural weakness. I could not rise to lay hold of him, but he bends to take hold of me. Standing where I stand, and weeping when I weep, he enters by the openings which grief has made into my heart, and gently makes it all his own. My brother, he insinuates himself into me through the emotions of our common nature, that so I may be borne up with him into the regions of spiritual light and liberty. He takes hold of me by my sorrow, that I may get hold of him for deliverance from my sin.

The lesson which I desire to take and give in the close is this: Do not separate yourselves from Christ in the numberless joys and griefs of human life, striving to get near him only in the great affairs that pertain to eternity. To act thus is to throw away some of the sweetest provisions of the covenant. Nor is the sympathy of the Saviour limited to one side of human experience. While he is a brother born specially for adversity, he is equally near and equally welcome in the day of joy. He reclined at a wedding in Cana before he stood by a grave in Bethany. He is man, and touches man with equal tenderness on both sides of his being. If Christians lie open at all points for Christ's sympathy, his sympathy at all points will stream in.

Christians, twine your heart round the love of Christ in little common earthly things; this will test whether you possess spiritual life, and nourish the regenerate into greater strength. To realize the Redeemer's manhood, and nearness, and brotherliness, will make religion more easy to the single-eyed, but more difficult to the double-minded. To those who love the presence of the Lord, no news can be more welcome than that he is near; to those who do not, no news can be more dreadful. God with us, in our own nature, compassing our being about, and touching our life at every point, as the air bathes every outspread leaf, and enters for the tree's sustenance at every pore,-this intelligence comes to a living Christian like cold waters to a thirsty soul. An Israelite, indeed, leaps with joy when he learns that his Redeemer will be to him "as the dew."

Open your mouth wide and he will fill it. Keep all your being open to all the sympathy of Christ. Do not banish him from your earth, and he will not shut you

out from his heaven.

BIBLE WOMEN AMONG THE LONDON POOR.*

"I REMEMBER," says Macaulay, in one of his brilliant orations, "that Adam Smith and that Gibbon had told us that there would never again be a destruction of civilization by barbarians. The flood, they said, would no more return to cover the earth; and they seemed to reason justly, for they compared the immense strength of the civilized part of the world with the weakness of that part which remained savage,

"The Missing Link; or, Bible Women in the Homes of the London Poor." By L. N. R., author of "The Book and its Story." London: Nisbet and Co.

and asked from whence were to come those Huns, and from whence were to come those Vandals who were again to destroy civilization? Alas, it did not occur to them that civilization itself might engender the barbarians which should destroy it; it did not occur to them that in the very heart of great capitals, in the very neighbourhood of splendid palaces, and churches, and theatres, and libraries, and museums, vice, and ignorance, and misery might produce a race of Huns fiercer than those who marched under Attila, and Vandals more bent on destruction than those who followed Genseric."

This remarkable passage-remarkable as coming, not from a home missionary or avowedly Christian philanthropist, but from a politician and historian-occurs in a speech delivered about seven or eight years ago. In 1857 there was commenced in London an evangelistic work which revealed the existence of a state of things in the heart of that capital the exact reflection of what the orator had described. It was then fully ascertained what the Church perhaps is not even yet thoroughly alive to-that a stream

of barbarism is flowing into our social system, not from abroad, but from beneath, and threatens the destruction, not merely of our civilization, but of our Protestantism, and even our Christianity. We all know very well, of course, what value is to be put upon the cry which is sent up against foreign missionaries by that semi-infidel, semi-sentimental school which would not only make charity a very domestic virtue, but would keep it at home altogether. It is well enough ascertained that those who do most for the Fijians and Hindoos are those also who do most for the poor and ignorant among ourselves. Still, there may be some truth in the following remark which comes evidently from the heart of one fresh from the sins and miseries of Seven Dials :-" England is looked upon abroad as the country whose faith is founded on a Book which she wishes to give to all mankind. But while she goes forth to possess the field of the world, has she not too often forgotten her HEATHEN AT HOME,-those who cluster round her heart in her capital city,-pitiable beings who live as if they had no God, no Bible, no hope, no thought of heaven; crowded together, often famishing, thriftless, naked, weary, drunken?" Let us be thankful, however, that Christian men and women everywhere are wakening up to a sense of the necessity of caring more than they have ever done for the sunken masses around them, that the paramount importance of domestic missions is being generally recognised, and that already in metropolitan St. Giles', and the West Port of Edinburgh, and the Wynds of Glasgow, the hopefulness of the work, the possibility of achieving success in it has been demon. strated.

When Mrs. Ranyard and some other like-minded friends had had their attention directed to the miserable district of Seven Dials, their first thought was merely to promote the circulation of the Scriptures in it. By-and-by, however, their efforts took the direction of elevating the social condition of the people; and, indeed, it was not possible to come into direct contact with families so sunk and wretched without seeking to secure their temporal as well as their spiritual well-being. But in endeavouring to carry out that end it was in the highest degree necessary to ascertain what kind of agency was required, and what was the grand and fatal defect which needed to be supplied if a thorough reformation was to be wrought upon the place. It was speedily found that what

they had contemplated as their end was the best means for | effecting their new and further purpose. The "Missing Link" turned out to be the Bible; and the agency seen to be best fitted for banishing at once the heathenism and the misery of the district was a band of Bible women. "The enterprise was undertaken only with a deep sense that the message from God should be carried to every member of the human family. Its welcome from the lost and the fallen was somewhat unexpected; and facts seemed very early to point to the supposition that the right agency, 'the missing link,' between them and those who wished to save them, had perhaps by accident been found."

Let us first glance at the character of THE FIELD in which the operations described were carried on. The work began in the parish of St. Giles', the occupants of which are thus described :-" Besides the gin-palace keepers and old clothes-men, there are tailors, hatters, bird-stuffers, dog's-meat men, crossing sweepers, costermongers, street dealers in fruit and flowers; also patterers, chanters, and song sellers, with sweeps, knife-grinders, and doormat makers, to which may be added a thick sprinkling of professed thieves, and, indeed, of the vicious of both sexes." Amid this motley mass every species of evil, of course, was found to be rampant. Here heathenism reigned. There was probably quite as much vital Christianity in the Black Town of Madras. There need not have been a great deal of poverty, for most of the people were able to make good wages, but drunkenness and mismanagement made of no avail the advantages of their position; and vice, dirt, disease, and misery, appeared to claim the district as their own. The only thing that really seemed to flourish was the gin-shop, "which commonly answered to its fellow" at the entrance and exit of every alley. The success which attended the efforts of the Bible women in this "Dismal Swamp," encouraged others to commence similar missions in similar districts of the city; and now there are agencies at work in such places as the following (those acquainted with the metropolis will recognise at once the suitableness of the stations):-Paddington (among the dust-heaps), Spitalfields, Bethnal Green, Shoreditch, Whitechapel, Gray's Inn Lane, and Westminster. From a very small spark of compassion in the heart of one devoted lady (the author of the book before us), there has been kindled a great fire, which we trust is destined to consume the corruption and purify the moral atmosphere of the dens of London. A mission, begun only two years ago, has already assumed dimensions which have attracted to it the interested attention of all among us who are concerned for the uplifting of the lapsed masses, and this fact alone is enough to assure us that it is carried on under the smile, and with the blessing of the Church's Head.

And who are the AGENTS who have been employed in this difficult field, and by whose efforts, under God, the great success has been achieved? Looking at the thing d priori, considering beforehand what sort of missionary would be fit to break ground in such a rough and perilous place as St. Giles', we should certainly have said: There will be needed a man, of great physical strength and undaunted moral courage, who, in the spirit of a Gardiner or a Richard Williams, will dare anything for the sake of Christ. The actual pioneer, however, was not a man at all, but a woman-a woman in apparently delicate health, who had, at least, "twice to seek surgical aid in an hospital," a woman, moreover, who, strangest of all, had been sent forth out of its own

slough, by the dismal swamp of St. Giles'. The name of MARIAN B. is already added to our list of heroic women. In the bright band of female philanthropists she has cut out for herself a peculiar and distinguished place. While the life of a Caroline Fry is associated with the reclamation of the erring of her own sex, and the labours of a Miss Marsh have brought a blessing to the hut of many a wandering "navvie," the yet half anonymous Marian of St. Giles' will be known as the restorer to a degraded section of our country. men of the grand old English institution of HOME. Those who have read the "Mendip Annals" will remember that what contributed more than anything else to insure the success of that interesting work which was carried on by Hannah More and her sister in Somersetshire, at the close of last century, was the circumstance of their finding at the very outset a female missionary singularly fitted for their work. The good ladies might well have taken, as doubtless they did, the discovery of such a person as a token for goodas the seal and sign of the divine approbation. And in like manner, surely, may the friends of Bible Missions in London recognise a similar providential interposition, in the raising up at the very commencement of their operations of an agent so wonderfully suitable both in respect of her character, position, and training, as the first Bible Woman of St. Giles'. Other women, admirably qualified for the work, subsequently appeared; and whatever changes for the better have been wrought on the waste places of London, the result is due to the direct efforts made by them and their lady superintendents. And, indeed, when, from the vantage-ground of history and experience we look back upon the mission, we can hardly fail to see that female management and female influence were indispensable to the effecting of a radical reform in the fields described. This will appear abundantly evident if we consider the character of the FRUITS that have been produced.

As the primary object of the mission was the circulation of the Scriptures, we naturally expect that one noticeable fruit shall be an increased interest in the Bible. Nor are we disappointed in this. Throughout the work we have many illustrations of the fact that, through the influence of a Marian or a Martha, men and women have been induced to become subscribers who would never have become so in ordinary circumstances; and towards the close of her volume Mrs. Ranyard gives a remarkable table, showing us at a glance what reception THE BOOK meets with now, even in the dens or rookeries of the metropolis. We learn from this table that no fewer than twenty-eight Bible women are now employed in the desert places of the city. Some of these have only just commenced to labour, three of them having been in the field at the time the table was made for not more than four weeks; so that it would convey no just idea of the amount of success achieved, if we were to give even the sum total of copies distributed. We shall rather make a selection from the list, and, naturally, we take the agent who has been longest engaged, and with whose name we are most familiar. Marian, then, has been at work in St. Giles' for ninety-nine weeks. During that time she has received in the shape of salary £37, 10s. ; for Bibles which she has sold she has been paid £29, 11s. 5d. The number of copies disposed of by her is as follows:-Bibles, 520; Testaments, 710,-in all, 1230. And still on her books are the names of thirty new subscribers. Fully to understand the value of these figures, we must, of course, always keep in mind the

character of the place in which the sales were made. "A man colporteur," says Mrs. Ranyard, with, we believe, perfect justice, "with his bag of books, passing up and down the streets of St. Giles' in the months of July, August, nnd September, especially when the people are gone to the hay, the harvest, and the hops, and acting according to the ordinary rules of colportage, would probably have returned, saying he could make no sales, and that the people were supplied; yet in the space of the same fourteen weeks, this experiment of female colportage, and weekly collection of pence combined, effected a sale of 174 copies, 54 of them Bibles, and in the most unlikely quarters." It is quite conceivable, however, that the Scriptures might have been introduced into the district, and yet that, like the many cartloads of wholesome material that were cast into the Slough of Despond, they failed to accomplish any real change in the character of the people. For the Bible, to be of benefit to any one, must be read; and the simple fact of possession was no absolute guarantee that that would be done. But, happily, we hear of other FRUIT in this volume than the sale of books merely,-fruit, the genuine and substantial character of which can admit of no possible question. To take the one district of St. Giles': it is exceedingly cheering to mark the improvement that has apparently been made, first on the social condition of the inhabitants, and consequently on their religious habits and relations. Neither our limited space nor the character of this publication admit of our describing at length the reformatory measures which were adopted, but we must at least give a general idea of them. First, then, a mighty step was taken when some of the mothers of the place had been persuaded that restoration to comfort and respectability was possible. So sunken were they before, that all hope and thought of amendment had been banished from their mind, and, however sad the state of any one might be, it was submitted to, not always resignedly certainly, but at least as inevitable. The paralysis which despair thus induced needed to be put an end to at the very outset ; and this the indefatigable "Marian" effected by kindly appeals, which she was able to back by references to her own case; for was not she also a St. Giles' woman, once as poor and once as regardless as they were themselves! Next, reforms of a seemingly humble, but really of a most important kind, were introduced into the household economy of the place. For example, in place of the supper of new bread, cheese, and porter, which the costermonger was in the habit of getting after his day's wandering in the streets, the women were taught and encouraged to prepare warm and nourishing soup. Does any one smile to hear this spoken of as an essential link in a social movement? Let him listen to what Mrs. Ranyard says about it:-"I believe that soup-making for themselves would alone cause a reformation in St. Giles', because the nourishment it would give would prevent the constant craving for stimulants, at which one scarcely wonders amid the foul smells abounding, and the perpetual weakening of digestion by hot cups of tea; and you cannot hope to raise them to think over the message from God which you have carried to them till some check is placed on their consumption of that which ruins them body and soul." Another great change effected in the economy of many a household is the establishment of the custom of SLEEPING IN BEDS. "In many of the rookeries of St. Giles'," says a writer in a quarterly review, "beds were unknown. A litter of rags was scattered on the floor, the ceremony of

dressing was dispensed with, and, clad in the dirty and comfortless garments worn through the day, the family or FAMILIES for often several are huddled together in one apartment-throw themselves down, like so many cattle, to wait for the morning. Apart from the objections which might be made to this plan from the side simply of morality. there were various things which rendered it productive of serious social disorder. In particular, those who had only such beds to rest in, rose, in the winter season especially, cold and unrefreshed, and did not feel themselves right until they had had their morning dram. Not for the comfort of the people only, then, but for higher reasons, it was felt to be desirable that a more human style of sleeping o' nights should if possible be inaugurated; and it is satisfactory to know that this new reform has, like the others, met with amazing acceptance." It has been well said that a woman has sunk into an awful depth of degradation when she has got the length of being absolutely indifferent to DRESS. Into this depth the women of St. Giles' had sunk; and to the clear-seeing Marian it soon appeared evident that an important point would be gained if the dormant instinct could be to some extent revived. She proposed, therefore, the establishment of sewing-clubs; and, in pleading for this end, she thus pithily stated her idea of what might be expected from it:-"The women will be taught to work while they are getting clothed, and, at the same time, led to save money from the gin-shop; and from decent clothing will follow the possibility of their going to places of worship, and their children to schools; while, again, this better dress will make them feel that they must have a clean room to sit down in." And things turned out just as was anticipated. "Rows of tidy, decently-dressed women,' says Mrs. Ranyard, "three months ago the ragged denizens of 'dens,' but now clothed by their own purchase and their own fingers, now meet me on a Tuesday night, for an hour, in a mission hall in the heart of the district." One most noble institution, the fruit of this mission, requires yet to be mentioned. This is the DORMITORY, OR HOME FOR WATER-CRESS GIRLS, five thousand of whom are always growing up in St. Giles'. No one wil be surprised to hear that many of these girls, brought up in such a haunt of vice and pollution, sink into the terrible abyss of prostitution. And nothing more than this need be said to show what an oasis a Christian home must be in such a desert. But, for fuller accounts of this most interesting and important work, we must refer the reader to the work before us, and to the past numbers of "The Book and its Missions." We can find space only for one more remark from Mrs. Ranyard. We commend it earnestly to the attention of all who may have glanced through this paper :"It certainly seems that a NATIVE FEMALE AGENCY, drawn from the class we want to serve and instruct, has hitherto been a missing link, and that such supplementary work might now perfect the heavenly chain which shall lift the lost and the reckless from the depths of their despair. It should be forged by the universal Church of Christ. In fact, the material is already in the hands of earnest Christians. and they have only to take it up and use it. So much of their past work has borne fruit that this has only to 'bring forth more fruit.' 'To him that hath shall be given,' and he shall have abundance in the garner of God."

N. L. W.

THE WORSHIP OF THE VIRGIN MARY.*

In the earliest Greek hymns given in Daniel's Thesaurus no trace of this worship is visible; and of all the Greek hymns collected by him, ranging from the third century to the twelfth, only two are professedly, from beginning to end, addressed to Mary, these being of the latest date; but in the fourth century the germs are but too visible. The great Oriental festival of the manifestation of Christ as God at his baptism was not linked with the life of the Virgin; it is through the nativity that the exaggerated reverence first creeps in. The Scripture narrative is lost sight of in the heat of controversy about the union of the divine and human natures in the person of Christ, and Mary is enthroned as the mother of God. One title after another is lavished on her, as the natural consequence of this supreme title: All holy, surpassingly holy, Mother of the unsetting Sun, Lady, Queen!—what title is too lofty to follow when once it was forgotten that the glory of the incarnation lay in its infinite condescension, in the wondrous grace which made the Lord of glory stoop so

low; that the glory of all connected with him consists not in what they are, but in what he is? The mistaken reverence, the utter misapprehension of the object of the incarnation, which threw this false lustre on the mother of Jesus, blotting out her true blessedness, should have traced the pedigree of Christ as a line of light through the history of man, illuminated with none but the most saintly names, and should surely have effaced those of Rahab and of "her who had been the wife of Uriah."

But there was another error, as pernicious and as widespread, which contributed to swell the tide of Mariolatry, the error which lost half the lessons of Jewish history and of the life of Jesus, and threw Christendom back to the wilderness and the camel's hair for its pattern, instead of to the home at Nazareth; the error which peopled deserts with isolated atoms of humanity, and desecrated homes. Monasticism added another step to the throne of Mary; and the adoration of Mary the mother of God became absorbed in that of St. Mary the Virgin. It is chiefly in this aspect that the early Latin hymns regard her-the pure vessel worthy of the great honour bestowed on it, meet, in her spotless purity, to be the gate through which life should enter the world, "the birth which becomes God." Yet, throughout the Ambrosian hymns there is not one especially addressed to her; and if she received a homage no creature, unfallen or redeemed, could desire, less than any that lowly and most blessed handmaid of the Lord, still the homage was rendered for Jesus' sake. Steadily, however, that great idolatry advanced, gathering strength from the weaknesses of humanity, and from its virtues, its asceticism, and its tenderness. Little nourishment, indeed, could it by any ingenuity extract from the Bible, from the sorrowful search at Jerusalem, from the marriage-feast at Cana, from the cross-where the last agony could not ex

* From the "Voice of Christian Life In Song." James Nisbet & Co.

tinguish the tenderness of Jesus, nor that surpassing tenderness draw from him one word which might have misled his Church-from the benediction which merged even her blessedness as his mortal mother in the yet deeper blessedness of his purchased and espoused Church. The Bible had therefore to be laid aside; of all the incidents of Mary's life recorded there, scarcely one is touched on in these hymns except the birth of Jesus. Tradition wove a gorgeous robe for her, and dressed her life in a false history, from the immaculate conception to the glorious assumption into heaven; the true Mary, and her lowly and feminine life, are altogether hidden; and instead of that pure and humble form, with her heavenly ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, a queen stands before us, arrayed in vulgar gold and earthly jewels, a goddess magnificent as any of old. Not, indeed, that the light of Christianity altogether ceased to shine even on that unchristian worship. Never was a purer or more beautiful ideal adored instead of God. All that was beneficent in man, tender and pure in woman, and gracious in God, was concentrated in Mary, mother, maiden, queen! No sorrow was too minute or too deep to be poured out on that gentle heart; no work was too mighty for the mother of God to accomplish by her commanding intercession. Pure as the angels, she had the pity of the mother for the fallen child. But beautiful as the image was, it was not divine; and high as the example was, it was but one-sided,-it could not be complete as that of the Son of man. That perfect character, and that life of labour and service; that unflinching courage, untiring energy, and ever ready wisdom, beyond which no man could aspire; and that patient endurance and overflowing sympathy, deeper than the depths of any woman's heart, were replaced by an ideal which, pure, and lowly, and exalted as it was, could not be a model for men, and could be but a negative model for women. The love which could only pity was a weak substitute indeed for the love which had redeemed and would save. Of all the moral evils which were reflected back from this idolatry on the worshipper

the false estimate of woman, the false estimate of married life, and the false thoughts of God-enough cannot easily be said. Beside the worship of Mary grew monasticism and chivalry. A negative or a romantic moral ideal took the place of that perfect example which God has given and unfolded to us in the self-sacrificing love, the unwearying benevolence, and the pity unto death of his own beloved Son.

And, sadder even yet than this, all the tender and merciful graces of which Mary was looked on as the source and the type were abstracted from the portrait of Jesus, until gradually the infinite and tender pity of his countenance and his words were forgotten, and he stood before the awe-stricken conscience as the stern and avenging Judge. Further yet, all the love and grace were drawn down from the Trinity on the countenance of Mary; the love of the Father was forgotten in the tenderness of the mother, the redeeming sorrows of the